Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has urged against comparisons being drawn between Kimi Antonelli and Ayrton Senna, which he ‘doesn’t enjoy reading’.

Mercedes has carefully managed Antonelli’s career, limiting media access during his season in feeder series F2, and playing down expectations since his promotion to Formula 1 last year.

However, hype has steadily built around the Italian, with his maiden victory in China and subsequent success in Japan making him the youngest championship leader in F1 history, bringing things to a boiling point, with some comparing him to three-time champion Senna.

“When it comes to Kimi, we have always been very clear in our objectives,” Wolff told media, including Crash.net.

“The first learning year with great performances, highlights, and then other moments where it was going to be very difficult. We have seen exactly that, and now we’re in the second year, and he continues to develop in a way that we have hoped to see and forecasted. But at the same time, not by increasing expectations to irrational levels.

“Of course, in Italy, everybody wants to talk about world championships and comparisons to Senna come up, which is something which I don’t enjoy to read, because he is a 19-year-old that has been most visible in Italy, and it’s more about decreasing expectations and pressure than increasing them.

“But he copes very well. He has a great personal environment, and I think in the team there are moments when we put our arm around him. Other times, we exercise more pressure, but overall, everything is coming together as expected.”

While Wolff may wish to distance Antonelli from the Senna links, the statistics around their early careers have a striking resemblance, with both achieving three podiums in their rookie years, both scoring their first poles and wins in the second race of their second season, both running the number 12 to those successes, and both achieving their second pole in the race immediately following.

Speaking on the Up to Speed podcast, former driver David Coulthard said: “Theres a nice symmetry to this young driver making his way in Formula 1. I remember watching Senna when he won his first grand prix. It was in 1985 in Portugal, in the rain, and he just dominated the grand prix, and we know what he went on to achieve.”